The Atlantic | December 2002 | Innocent Bystander | Murphy | The Rogues of Academe: The repertoire of methods employed to rid nations of their undemocratic or loathsome rulers is at once familiar and limited. There is assassination, coup d'état, and war. There are economic sanctions. On the rare occasions when elections come into the picture, there is sometimes an international effort to ensure that the elections are fair. Now Boston University is experimenting with a new approach, the Lloyd G. Balfour African Presidents in Residence Program. The idea, simply put, is that democratically elected African leaders might not be so prone to overstay their welcome as chief executives (or to keep meddling in local politics after leaving office) if they had a well-endowed university sinecure in the United States to look forward to.
Well, that's certainly a different incentive.
Apparently, the only requirement is that their initial election was democratic, more or less. There seems to be no specific requirement that they retained their hold on power through the use of legitimate democratic means. How odd.
Just think: if this incentive actually works, yes, it will pull a few tyrants out of power. Maybe. And it will make us a haven for ex-dictators (more than we actually are, I mean), so that other countries will think that they have even more reason to hate us! Our universities are enabling their leaders to escape justice!
Really, the results of this program could be quite interesting. In the sense of a Chinese curse, I mean.
Posted by iain at December 31, 2002 06:16 PMComments
